Hoover's police cars are fueling America's future

Right now, policymakers in Washington, D.C., are debating the future of the nation's programs to produce renewable, clean-burning biofuels.

Rather than just read more reports or deliver more speeches, I wish they'd come on down to Hoover and ride in some of our police cars.

They'd see several of the first police cars in this country to be powered by wood-based ethanol produced from wood scrap and yard wastes collected in the city of Hoover itself. In short, they'd see vivid physical evidence the ethanol industry is producing a new generation of biofuels that spare us from depositing more carbon in the atmosphere and dumping more wastes in our landfills.

Public policymakers should also be aware that renewable biofuels make sense economically as well as environmentally. The wood-based ethanol powering Hoover's police cars is produced by Gulf Coast Energy, a start-up company in Livingston that is the first in the nation to take a city's wood wastes and turn them into ethanol through "gasification" technology.

Gulf Coast Energy's pioneering technology -- and its partnership with the city of Hoover -- is a hopeful sign for our state, our region and much of rural America. Let's face it: This part of the country is rich in timber and other agricultural resources. But, even before the recession, our regional economy was lagging. Through our partnership with Gulf Coast Energy, Hoover is making use of the wood waste that is plentiful in Alabama to develop a new industry with a promising future. Instead of despoiling our natural heritage, the biofuels industry helps protect our air and our land and creates high-skill, high-wage jobs.

Moreover, building the biofuels industry aligns our local economy with the nation's needs. As President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush before him have both recognized, the United States must break its dangerous dependence on foreign oil, much of which is imported from unstable countries with hostile governments. Domestically produced ethanol is one workable way to wean America from this addiction that undermines our economic stability and threatens our national security. That is why U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican, and U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, a Democrat, both attended the public ceremony at which Hoover's police cars were first fueled with wood-based ethanol. Increasing the use of ethanol is an issue both sides can agree on.

In Hoover, since 2004, we've been fueling our fleet of municipal vehicles with American-made ethanol and have driven more than 8.7 million miles on corn ethanol. We have 189 flex-fuel vehicles running on a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, and 171 vehicles and other equipment running on B-20 biodiesel. Now, we're moving forward from the first generation of renewable fuels, produced from corn and other starches, to the second "cellulosic" generation, produced from wood chips and other municipal wastes.

We also have started a residential recycling program in the city where our residents can drop off used cooking oil at the municipal building or any fire station. We started this program more than two years ago and have collected more than 25,000 gallons of used cooking oil, keeping this material out of our landfills and sewer treatment plants, and producing on-site biodiesel from this material at a very low cost to the city. Our community has enjoyed taking part in this program.

Hoover has been able to move forward to the frontiers of biofuels because we began by using the first generation of ethanol, which is based on corn and other starches. For the rest of the nation to follow our path, the United States needs to continue investing in the domestic renewable energy industry that is fueling a future of energy independence, environmental sustainability and rural revitalization.